Life Spark: God is there in your darkest night. (John 13:18-38)
30 So Judas left at once, going out into the night. (John 13:30, NLT)
And what a night it was. For Jesus. For the twelve. Especially for Judas. Hellish darkness eclipsed his soul that night.
One dark Halloween night when I was sixteen, I and a couple of delinquent friends loaded the back of a Toyota pickup with basketball sized pumpkins in various stages of rotting. We drove around town throwing them onto porches of innocent victims and watching them explode when they hit the deck.
At one house, five seconds after the bomb exploded, a burly man ran out the front door, screaming. I took off at a full run around his house and through his back yard. All of a sudden everything turned upside down. I ran full speed into a neck-high clothesline in the dark. I’m glad the police didn’t catch us. I can just see someone watching a police lineup and saying, “It was the guy with the red horizontal line on the front of his neck.”
Evil comes alive at night. Darkness conceals. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, approximately two-thirds (63.2 percent) of rapes/sexual assaults occur at night. And 71% of motor vehicle thefts occur at night. Yes, night conceals.
But night also reveals. Judas’ corruption would be revealed before the next sunrise. Peter, who promised to stand with Jesus no matter what, would be revealed to be a nocturnal braggart. On that night, and three days later, God’s heart would be revealed through Jesus like never before. Because God works the night shift, the same darkness that concealed man’s evil revealed God’s love.
When he [Judas] had left, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is seen for who he is, and God seen for who he is in him.” (John 13:31, MSG) That night in the upper room, in Gethsemane, God would be clearly revealed for who He was and is – Love. Jesus went to the cross because Jesus is love. Love personified.
Life-question: What dark night have you experienced (physically or spiritually)? In hindsight, can you see that God was at work in your darkness?